The attic landing was brightly lit, which ought to have been reassuring, but gave the old building a vaguely sinister appearance. Elinor looked towards the iron staircase which spiralled round and down so that it was impossible to see beyond the curve. Was anything moving there, crouching just out of sight around the curve? She thought there was not. Across the landing was the door leading into Lewis’s apartment: it was perhaps twenty or twenty-five feet away. The brown cord carpet covered it; she could be across it soundlessly and through the door within seconds.
Elinor took another deep breath and pulling her own door shut so that the Yale lock clicked home and carefully pocketing her own key, sped across the floor.
The lock to Lewis’s flat turned like oiled silk and she was inside. She closed the door with barely a whisper of sound and turned the key. Nobody could possibly have heard the soft click. So far so good.
The flat was larger than Elinor’s, and although it was shrouded in darkness, the curtains at the window overlooking St Stephen’s Alley had not been drawn. Silvery moonlight slid across the room, lighting the portrait of Sir Lewis’s ancestor which he had brought from Chelsea. It was the kind of portrait where the eyes followed you, which could be a bit shivery, but it was also the kind of portrait in which you wished you could have known the subject.
The phone was on the desk and Elinor snatched it up and tapped out the magical 999, her mind framing the brisk sentences that would bring help in a blaze of flashing blue lights and blaring sirens.
She had not expected the call to be answered quite so swiftly; in fact there was not even time for the ringing-out tone to sound at the other end and the sudden whispery voice in her ear sent a queer shiver through her. But of course the emergency service would be on its toes. She should thank heaven that it was.
The close-sounding voice said, ‘Night service.’
This was unexpected but it was no time to start wondering how emergency calls were answered. Elinor said, ‘Please will you come at once—’ Her voice sounded shaky as if she might start crying at any minute, which would not do. She tried again. ‘I’m speaking from St Stephen’s Wharf – the Chance Centre in St Stephen’s Road.’
‘What’s wrong, my dear?’
It was absurd to feel a cold wave of fear scudding across her skin. It was ridiculous in the extreme to think that the voice was exactly the kind of sinister breathy voice that might make a frightening anonymous phone call in the middle of the night. It’s the ‘my dear’ bit, thought Elinor. That’s all it is. He means it reassuringly only it sounds a bit sinister. She said, very determinedly, ‘You are the police, aren’t you? I am through to the emergency service?’
There was a pause. Elinor thought that when novelists wrote about the hairs lifting on the nape of your neck they got it dead right. ‘Who are you?’ she said, and heard how her voice came out tinny and a bit shrill.
‘I’m the night watchman,’ said the voice, and Elinor felt a flood of relief, because of course that was who it was; he must be around after all. Perhaps it was an extra shift or something.
‘Did you come up to the top floor a short while ago? Was it you outside my door?’ Her hands were gripping the phone so tightly that the knuckles showed white. Please say it was you. Please say something ordinary and reassuring.
‘Well, of course that was me,’ said the voice and this time it sounded more normal. Elinor thought it was probably only the odd closeness and the faint whispery echo on the line that was disconcerting her.
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ she said. ‘You frightened me to death!’
‘And who are you?’
‘Elinor Craven. I’m Lewis’s – I’m Sir Lewis Chance’s assistant.’ For some reason, saying this gave Elinor unlooked-for confidence, like touching a talisman. Nothing dreadful could happen to someone who was Sir Lewis Chance’s assistant.
‘Where are you?’ said the voice. ‘Are you inside the house?’
‘Yes, of course. I’m on the top floor. I’m in—’ She paused and then said, ‘I’m in my own flat.’
‘All by yourself?’
‘Well – yes.’ This, of course, was the one thing you should never do: you absolutely never admitted to an unknown man that you were in the house on your own. Elinor said, ‘Sir Lewis is due back very shortly, however.’
‘Oh, you’re quite safe, my dear.’ This ought to have been the reassurance she had been waiting for, but instead there was an impression that the owner of the voice had drawn in his breath with wet gloating.
‘I’ll make another check of the building, just to be sure,’ he said. ‘And what you must do is stay safely in your flat. You did say the top floor, didn’t you?’
‘I – yes.’
‘Yes,’ said the voice. ‘That’s what I thought you said.’
‘You – where are you?’ said Elinor sharply.
There was the ghost of a chuckle from the other end. ‘I’m in the house with you,’ said the voice.
Going out on to the brightly lit landing again was like going on to a lighted stage. Elinor felt horribly vulnerable and exposed, but the stair lights were on and she had only to step across the short stretch of floor.
As she pulled Lewis Chance’s door to and turned to cross the landing the scents of freshly sawn timber and new paint lay on the air. But underneath was a darker older scent: something musty and ancient and cruel. Damp and dry rot still lingering, said Elinor to herself firmly. But she could almost feel the old building listening and watching. As if there were eyes everywhere. I’m in the house with you. . . Would a night watchman really say that? But if it wasn’t the watchman, who was it? Someone who’s in the house with me . . . Someone who knows I’m up here on my own . . . Her heart began to pound and her palms were slippery with sweat. But all she had to do was get back into her flat and lock the door.
As she thrust her hand into her dressing-gown pocket for her own key there was a click and the stair lights went out.
Elinor froze at once. The suddenness of the darkness was like a blow and the lack of windows on the landing or the iron stairs made the blackness absolute.
It was ridiculous to think it was anything other than a power failure. It was entering the realms of fantasy to imagine that the click had been the sound of someone pulling the main switch. Yes, but the switches were at the foot of the stairs, just by the cellar door. You hadn’t better go down to the cellars, Elinor. . .
This was absurd. No one had pulled the main switch. Power failures were always happening and with appalling timing as well. This one could not have been timed much worse if the electricity company had planned it a fortnight in advance.
She began to inch her way across the landing. If she kept her back to the wall she could not possibly go wrong. Lewis’s flat was behind her and her own was dead ahead. You can’t go wrong, Elinor.
It was remarkable how much more clearly you could hear in the dark: that was the absence of sight heightening the other senses, of course. Blind people developed hearing to a superhuman degree. To all intents and purposes Elinor was blind for the moment and she could hear the creakings and the stirrings of the old house very vividly indeed. She could hear timbers in the roof contracting as they cooled and she could hear the old iron stairs swaying a bit. Exactly as if someone were creeping up it very quietly and furtively. She stopped dead, trying to penetrate the blackness. Surely her eyes should have adjusted by now? Wasn’t that a glimmer of light in front? Overspill on to the stairs from the floor below? There were offices and three or four small interview rooms on the next floor down, and a telephone room where they were setting up the Lifeline service. The large communal refectory-cum-kitchen was on the ground floor and the cellars were beneath, with the entrance at the very bottom of the iron stairs.
The light was stronger now and it was moving. Elinor shrank against the wall. A moving light. Someone coming up the stairs carrying a pencil torch or even a small candle. Yes, it was a candle, it was flickering and dancing and throwing eerie shadows on the wall . . . And whoever was carrying it was coming stealthily and secretly, not cheerfully and openly like a night watchman would come, calling out as he approached so that you would know who it was.
Because it wasn’t a night watchman you spoke to earlier, you know quite well it wasn’t . . .
Her own flat was only feet away – she could see the faint outline of the door now. She would be inside within about eight seconds and she would drop the latch and shoot home the bolts, and then drag the furniture across the door. And if anything tried to get to her she would break open the windows and yell down to the street for help. The light was coming closer, but it was coming very slowly. He’s taking his time, thought Elinor. He doesn’t want me to hear him. But I won’t panic. Here’s the door – at least I can see better now.
It was important not to fumble with the key. Elinor’s hand closed over the familiar comforting outline in her dressing-gown pocket, and she felt for the lock halfway up the door. At least four of those seconds had ticked past. She risked a glance towards the stairs. Oh God, he was coming closer. I must be quick, and above all, I mustn’t drop the key in the dark.
The key slid into the lock, and Elinor drew in a shaking breath of relief. Almost there. It was then that she felt the resistance to the key, and the sickening truth dawned on her. She had taken both keys with her into Lewis’s flat, but she had brought only one out.
She had picked up Lewis’s instead of her own.
It spoke volumes for the frayed state of her nerves that at least ten appalled seconds ticked away before she realised that all she had to do was return to Lewis’s flat.
As she fumbled for his lock again a movement on the stairs made her turn. The wavering light was on the curve, spilling on to the landing, casting shadows. Elinor could see her own shadow; she could see the bundly outline of her dressing gown and the trailing cord.
The second shadow fell across the wall of the stairwell, fuzzy at the edges and slightly blurred, and horror flooded Elinor’s mind.
A figure the size and breadth of a man, the body that of a man, normal, legs and arms and feet. Except for— The head, thought Elinor. There’s something wrong with the head. It’s too big, it’s twice the size of a human head . . .
There was the scrape of a footstep on the stair, and as the figure came nearer, Elinor’s mind spun in sick terror.
The head was huge, a monstrous grotesque shape. The names of ancient, virtually extinct illnesses raced across her panicking mind: encephalitis – water on the brain, hadn’t they called it? And some of those poor things with Down’s syndrome had a lumpish distorted look. The shadow was hunched slightly over, as if the swollen head were too heavy for it to carry. As it came into sharper relief, it turned, so that she saw the silhouette more clearly, and disbelief warred with fear for a second, because the thing, whatever it was, had pointed, pricked ears and a snout-like muzzle. The frozen panic broke then, and Elinor pushed the key home with trembling hands, and felt the lock turn. She half fell into Lewis’s sitting room and sobbing with panic, slammed the door and dragged the bolt home.
Lewis had left the Savoy Hotel rather earlier than he had indicated to Elinor: the dinner had been mildly enjoyable but the company had been dully predictable. He had talked to a few people who might contribute to the centre and who might further one or two projects, and he had listened to the speeches and the smoking-room stories. On balance the speeches had been more entertaining than the blue jokes. A reluctant grin lifted his lips as he remembered Elinor’s dry observation earlier.
It had caused him immense inner amusement to be welcomed as a valued guest tonight, and it had afforded him sardonic pleasure to find his company sought and his opinions listened to as if they were Holy Writ. No one had mentioned his father; Lewis sometimes even thought people had forgotten. But he had not forgotten and he never would forget. It had been dubbed the most complex pension fraud ever to be uncovered, and when twenty years afterwards the Maxwell scandal broke, some newspapers had dragged up the Chance trial and drawn parallels. But Charles Chance’s brilliant criminal juggling had made Robert Maxwell look like a street pickpocket.
Lewis picked up a taxi in the Strand and noted the reaction to the St Stephen’s Road address. It was only when you were older that you could appreciate real irony, and there was irony in what he was doing now: leaving the lavish hotel, replete with an excellent dinner (the Savoy do a very good partridge aux choux in season), mellow with good claret, but directing the taxi to a run-down area of London’s wharfland. Probably the taxi driver thought he was cruising for a prostitute.
The prostitutes of both sexes were out in force; mostly walking in twos and threes, which Lewis supposed was because of the murder scare. The subterranean demi-world closing ranks as it so often did. Looking after each other.
They seemed, to Lewis, incredibly young and the boys appeared younger than the girls. Was it the thick make-up and the clothes the girls affected that made them look older? He glanced at a group of them: cracked leather mini-skirts and high heels and impossible hairstyles. They were more aggressive than the boys as well, but under it they were as young. There was the old joke about knowing you were ageing when the policemen started to look younger, but Lewis thought you could as easily say you were ageing when street women began to look like schoolchildren. Two of the girls called a raucous good night as he paid off the taxi outside Chance House and one of the boys gave a shrill wolf whistle. Lewis grinned and sketched a half-wave, half-salute. None of them would bother to approach him because they knew him by now, but some of them would come to the centre. They would get beaten up, or they would get into debt, or their boyfriends would leave them. The girls might get pregnant, the boys might contract Aids or syphilis. They would all panic as they got older and some would turn to drugs or drink.
Chance House was quiet, and the stairs and landing lights were all switched off. Lewis reached automatically for the switch, and glanced routinely towards the cellar door – closed, of course; all’s well – and went quickly up to his flat.
Elinor had switched on every light in Lewis Chance’s flat – so much for power failures – and then had curled into a chair facing the door and stayed there. Her mind was swinging between panic and disbelief, because surely, surely, nightmare creatures with monstrous beast heads only existed in books and horror films? The Thing from the Black Lagoon. The Beast in the Cellar.
She was listening with fierce intensity for the smallest sound from the stair but there was nothing. Whatever had come creeping up the iron stair had gone away. Because it heard the lock turn and the bolts draw? The building had fallen back into its brooding silence and Elinor thought nothing moved beyond the door. It was not a matter of hearing, it was a question of feeling. I’d know if the thing was out there. But no matter how much I know, I’m not going to open that door until Lewis is back.
Incredibly it was only eleven o’clock, which meant that barely three-quarters of an hour had passed since she heard the soft step outside. Could she sit it out until Sir Lewis returned? The phone was plainly not connected – it took a good deal of resolve to pick up the phone and make sure about this, but she forced herself to do it. Dead. Then I’m on my own. What about a weapon in case the thing tries to get in? She looked around: lamps, books, radio. No, something heavier. She made her way into the kitchen, keeping her eyes on the door, and found an empty wine bottle. If anything tried to get in she would smash it to pulp.
She had thought fear would keep her alert and wide awake but she had not realised how draining fear was. It had not occurred to Elinor that she might actually have to fight sleep off, but the quieter the house grew, the heavier her eyelids became. Several times her head fell forward and she felt herself spinning downwards into a dark shadowland where sinister creatures who wore long dark overcoats and deep-brimmed hats to hide their unnatural heads, crept up on her. Each time this happened she managed to drag herself awake and each time there was only the calm quiet sitting room and the curious comfort of Lewis’s belongings about her. Elinor sank back into a half-doze and it was only when the scrape of the alley door being quietly opened below roused her, that she realised she had after all slid into real sleep.
She sat bolt upright at once, her eyes going to the hands of the wall clock. One a.m. The smallest of the small hours.
The light quick footsteps coming up the iron staircase were unmistakably Lewis’s. He had just that way of going up and down the stairs; not running but not walking either. I’ll have some explaining to do, thought Elinor, suddenly aware that she was wearing a dressing gown and that it was one o’clock in the morning. Supposing he’s brought someone back with him? This embarrassing possibility had not until now occurred to her.
But the footsteps were plainly solitary, and huge thankfulness flooded Elinor’s mind.
‘Brandy,’ said Lewis, holding out the glass. ‘Very good for shock.’
In a minute he might even say, ‘Drink this,’ thought Elinor, who was annoyed to find that now it seemed to be all over she was shivering violently from nervous reaction. They always said, ‘Drink this’ in books. And you drank it and then, depending on which book you had fallen into, any number of things happened. If it was a country house whodunit you went bowling round the room, heels to head, in a loop of strychnine death-agony, which served you right for not spotting the murderer’s identity. Or if it was science fiction you turned into a soulless bone-crunching robot. If it was Lewis Carroll’s Alice, of course, you either became tiny enough to slide under the door or too big for anything, and if it was Robert Louis Stevenson you metamorphosed into the slavering half-human Mr Hyde prowling the fog-bound streets of Victorian London— Elinor shut off the rest of this hysterical fantasy and pulled herself together sufficiently to take the glass.
They had gone back into Elinor’s flat, and Lewis had switched on all the lights and checked every room.
‘I’ve switched your heating up as well,’ he said. ‘Is that all right? Extreme cold always follows an unpleasant experience.’ At the sound of his voice – at the ordinariness of his voice – Elinor began to feel very much better. And the brandy was setting up a glowing core of warmth.
‘Can you tell me what happened? I mean properly tell me.’
Elinor had stopped shivering sufficiently to think about what she was going to say. It was very important not to let him think she was apt to be hysterical and it was even more important that he did not think she was a person who saw monsters creeping up stairs.
Selecting her words with care, she said, ‘There was someone in the house – an intruder – a burglar. Footsteps on the stairs.’
‘Yes?’ He was watching her from over the rim of his own brandy glass. The upper part of his face was in shadow and although pinpoints of light flickered in his eyes they were silvery lights – cold – and the eyes themselves were unreadable. He had discarded his dark overcoat and the silk evening scarf but he was still wearing his dinner jacket. If men realised how devastating they looked in well-cut evening clothes they would never protest about putting them on. Lewis Chance’s evening things were extremely well cut and he looked very devastating indeed.
Elinor sipped the brandy, drawing her brows down in a scowl. ‘I went across the landing to use your phone extension. Mine isn’t connected yet and I’d heard the – burglar go downstairs, so I thought it was safe.’ It was probably imagination to think he looked up at the hesitation or that he had paused in the act of lifting his own brandy glass. Elinor said defensively, ‘You insisted we each had a key to both flats. For emergencies. And I thought—’
‘That if this wasn’t an emergency nothing was. Of course. Go on.’
‘I was going to ring 999 – I didn’t realise your phone wasn’t on yet either. But then the – the night watchman answered and said it wasn’t an intruder at all, it had only been him checking all the floors.’ She thought this sounded reasonably believable. It was pretty ironic that the first time a man should ply her with brandy when she was in her night clothes it had to be her employer, and he was only here because of a suspected burglar.
‘And then?’ said Lewis. ‘What happened then?’
‘Nothing,’ said Elinor shortly. ‘I virtually locked myself out, heard what I thought was the intruder again and dashed back into your flat. I bolted the door and grabbed an empty wine bottle.’
‘An—’
‘As a weapon in case the man broke in. It’s probably still on the floor in your sitting room.’
‘At least you spared my Nuits St Georges,’ observed Lewis, drily.
‘It isn’t meant to be funny.’
‘I wasn’t thinking it was.’
‘Well you looked it.’
‘I was thinking how resourceful you were.’ And I’m thinking how right I was to suspect you’d react well to an unconventional situation, said his mind. How many females would have thought of the wine bottle – or any weapon at all?
Lewis sipped his brandy, and smiled at Elinor over the rim of the glass. He had been very quick in bringing the brandy but he had still brought the correct glasses: crystal goblets. That’s style, thought Elinor with irritated admiration. I’d have sloshed it into a mug.
Lewis regarded her thoughtfully. His eyes were the sort that mother often bestowed on the revolting heroes of her books, and unfailingly described as ‘luminous’. It was annoying to find that luminous grey eyes actually existed. Elinor, staring at Lewis Chance, saw for the first time how closely he resembled the portrait over his desk. His hair was darker and he was about twenty years older, of course, but in the rather low light neither of these things was noticeable. His hair had been tousled by the night air, and the brandy – or maybe the lavish dinner earlier – seemed to have melted the barriers a bit. If he smiles he’ll almost be the Victorian portrait come to life, thought Elinor. If I start thinking that portraits-are stepping out of their frames to sit drinking brandy with me, I’m nearer hysteria than I thought!
She said firmly, ‘I have to say I didn’t much like the sound of the night watchman,’ and Lewis frowned into the dregs of his brandy. In a minute he would say something about the watchman being a bit eccentric, or foreign, and not to worry. He might even produce the famous line about trying to get some rest. And if he says that, thought Elinor, the spell will break and just as well, too!
Lewis did not say any of it. In an expressionless tone, he said, ‘Elinor, I’d rather not tell you this, but I think you’d find out for yourself.’
‘What?’ Elinor felt as if someone had tipped a bucket of ice into her stomach. I know what he’s going to say. And I don’t want him to say it.
‘It couldn’t have been the night watchman,’ said Lewis. ‘He’s a bit unusual but I’d stake a couple of fortunes that he wouldn’t have spoken to you in the way you’ve described.’ He paused, and then said, ‘And also, Elinor, I’m still waiting for the locksmiths to bring spare keys. Raffael hasn’t got a key to the building: he won’t have one until the end of the week.’
After what seemed to be a very long time, Elinor said, in a horrified whisper, ‘Then – who was I speaking to? Oh God, who was I speaking to?’